Based on Paul Cooper's excellent new book of the same name, we shall explore the rise and ultimate demise of fourteen world wide civilizations.  A civilization is a large and organized society, many of which lasted hundreds, even thousands of years.  But each of the fourteen we consider met their demise over a relatively brief time.  and in most cases, they totally disappeared, leaving it to archaeologists and historians to rediscover and explain.  Fortunately, we can expand on Cooper's eloquent descriptions with further research on our own.  Meanwhile, we will learn a lot, and consider the ultimate fate of our own civilization